Schools: Mobile Phones

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I was genuinely in two minds about contributing to this important debate due to the expertise that exists in our Chamber, not least from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, whose work on online harms is renowned and her reputation well deserved. I am particularly looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, whose recent authoritative report I publicly applaud.

As a grandma of three grandchildren, I am already concerned about their screen time. Before diving into the murky pool of politics, I was the pastoral head of a large comprehensive school, where I was responsible for child protection and safeguarding. To me, this is a safeguarding issue. Even then, I had begun to notice increases in mental health issues; things that were rare were becoming common. My son recommended that I read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. His main tenet was that two factors within Generation Z have created this anxious generation: the overprotection of young people in the real world and the underprotection of them in the virtual world. That was the lightbulb moment when everything fell into place.

There is now a significant body of authoritative data showing that depression, anxiety and other mental health issues are on the increase in young people. There also seems to be a growing consensus that the use of smartphones has been and continues to be a major contributing factor to this. The kids are definitely not all right.

Health Professionals for Safer Screens is very clear that the risks are overwhelming and increasing and outweigh any benefits. That is a sit-up-and-take-notice statement—and, to be fair, some parents are doing just that. Parentkind, in its informative briefing, told us that eight in 10 parents say that smartphones are harmful to young people, while seven in 10 say that limiting children’s access to smartphones would make life easier for them as parents.

We are now faced with having accepted this wonderful new technology that we all love, to which I confess to being addicted, with its many positives, but without concrete knowledge about the impact on our children—until now. Apparently, older teens spend at least eight hours a day in front of a screen, teenage boys more than girls, and even eight to 10 year-olds spend at least six hours a day. Eight hours in a day is an enormous amount of time that could, and in my view should, be spent on personal and social development in the real world. Instead, they become passive consumers of other people’s curated worlds, giving them a very poor representation of reality.

I believe that allowing children several hours a day without phone distractions is a good thing in itself, and it would break the addictive cycle that is associated with excessive use. It is no surprise to me that there has been a rise in the number of youngsters with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder—ADHD—an inability to keep focused. Clear restrictions on phones in schools would send a very clear message to parents that the excessive use of phones causes demonstrable harms—harms that in the real world they are seeking to protect their children from. Schools are best placed to take on that educative role for students and to empower parents to take back control in the home. The evidence shows that many schools are doing that.

I feel that a school’s leadership team should be able to decide how to make such restrictions work and make exceptions. The key question we are asking is whether it should be mandated, and I believe that it should be seriously considered. It is illegal for youngsters to buy alcohol or other drugs and to gamble. Most parents would not be happy if their child had a bottle of vodka or a bag of weed in their school bag, but the phone sits there capable of creating the same cravings, desires and subsequent addiction. That bothers me greatly.

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

I briefly remind noble Lords that the speaking time is four minutes. I ask noble Lords to please stick to it so that we can finish the debate on time.